Aurelia Butler

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    Review: A Young Pianist Finds His Way to Carnegie Hall

    Mao Fujita’s playing had a prettiness all its own, but he didn’t connect profoundly with all the composers on his largely safe program.The 24-year-old pianist Mao Fujita made his Carnegie Hall debut on Wednesday, shuffling onto the stage of Stern Auditorium, his demeanor unassuming and his back slightly hunched. When his fingers touched the keys, though, waves of airy filigree, beautifully formed and finished, emerged in almost uninterrupted streams for his two-hour solo recital.Having released a recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas in the fall, Fujita began his recital with two pieces by that composer. Fujita’s genteel statement of the theme in the Nine Variations on a Minuet by J.P. Duport gave over quickly to rippling runs that would have felt too fast if not for his pearly tone. That exuberance carried over into Mozart’s Sonata in D Major, K. 311, and even at such speed, the music had buoyancy, like a kite held aloft in a breeze.Fujita’s playing, gossamer without sacrificing the sturdy consonance of Mozart’s style, has a prettiness all its own. He plays through the ends of phrases, bringing them to a fine point with exquisitely shaped diminuendos, and maintains a clear yet shimmery tone.Comparing the sonata with Fujita’s recorded version, I missed the cleanly delineated treatment of Mozart’s contrapuntal writing, which Fujita approached on the album with Bach-like clarity and independence of line. At Carnegie, Fujita’s left-hand parts sometimes sounded smeared — perhaps because their subtlety didn’t read in the hall — and there was a presentational quality to his playing, as though he were offering it to the public for judgment.At times, Fujita didn’t connect profoundly with the composers on this largely safe program. Even in the most stylistically attuned hands, Liszt’s Ballade No. 2 in B Minor risks coming across as overwrought, and Fujita’s traversals of the keyboard sounded superficial rather than splashy. In Brahms’s Theme and Variations in D Minor, dedicated to Clara Schumann, for whom he pined, Fujita gestured at the piece’s muscularity by firmly articulating its chords, but the performance lacked depth of sound — and the sense of a body leaning into the keyboard to unburden an emotional weight. Still, placid passages in both pieces glinted.Fujita didn’t linger over the harmonies of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances, Op. 21, instead using them to propel himself forward, and something clicked in the last movement, a glimmering Agitato that he colored in shades of twilight. After laying down the final G minor chord with touching delicacy, he immediately jumped into a piece in the same key, Robert Schumann’s Second Piano Sonata.Playing at furious speed, angsty and furtive, the melody peeking in and out view, Fujita seemed transformed. Where some pianists use the right-hand octaves to crown the motion of the first movement, Fujita dispatched them efficiently, as if they too were caught in the swirl of Schumann’s wildness. The audience clapped excitedly after the movement, either inspired by its feeling or thinking they were applauding the end of Clara’s Romances.In his criticism and music, Schumann sometimes wrote in the style of two distinct personalities that he named Florestan and Eusebius, and Fujita handled the pendulum swings between them — spiraling tempestuousness on the one hand, starry serenity on the other — with purposefulness and direction in the final movement.The pieces by the Schumanns would have been the recital’s highlight were it not for Fujita’s first encore, the opening Allegro from Mozart’s infectious “Sonata Facile.” Here, Fujita outdid his recording of this music and also the Mozart earlier in the program, trading the piece’s usual extroversion for beguiling interiority, with cheeky ornaments of his own devising and an approach to melody that, admittedly, might have been too free. The uniformly pretty tone was still there — but there was also the confidence of an artist who was sharing not only some music but something of himself with his audience. More

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    Sam Smith Seeks Self-Acceptance and Catharsis on ‘Gloria’

    On the British musician’s fourth album, “Gloria,” Smith puts aside ballads for more danceable tracks that show flashes of boldness, but often retreat to generics.Since the release of Sam Smith’s soulful 2014 smash “Stay With Me,” the British singer and songwriter has been pop’s most high-profile balladeer of queer heartbreak, a crooner with a pure, buttery tone and an agile vocal range that can swoop from the depths of despair to an airy, yearning falsetto. Now, on the musician’s more upbeat and sensual fourth album, “Gloria,” Smith, who uses they/them pronouns, is singing a less dour tune.The album’s first single, “Love Me More,” is a bright, springy ode to self-acceptance, inspired by Smith’s increasing vulnerability in talking about their longtime struggles with body image. “Every day I’m trying not to hate myself,” they sing with wrenching candor, “but lately it’s not hurting like it did before.” “Love Me More” transcends the limitations of one-dimensional “empowerment pop” because it doesn’t downplay the intensity of Smith’s challenges and, refreshingly, suggests that self-love is an ongoing process.But the “Gloria” song that became Smith’s first No. 1 hit in the United States is something else entirely: “Unholy,” a campy, devilish romp with a hook that cleverly utilizes the double harmonic scale and features a guest verse from the German pop singer Kim Petras. (Smith and Petras became the first nonbinary person and the first openly transgender woman to reach the top of the Hot 100.) The appeal of “Unholy” comes from the way it wags a lusty finger at holier-than-thou puritanism and presents queerness as the basis of aesthetic liberation. “Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot at the body shop,” Smith sings with a knowing, beckoning wink. It sounds like the most fun they’ve ever had on a song.Much of “Gloria” aims for a similar sense of ecstatic catharsis and looks for it where Smith’s career began: on the dance floor. The forlorn pianos and light percussion of Smith’s signature ballads have largely been swapped out for synthesizers and electronic beats. The thumping neo-house “Lose You” harkens back to Smith’s early breakout appearances on U.K. dance hits like Disclosure’s “Latch” and Naughty Boy’s “La La La,” while the sleek, glittery “I’m Not Here to Make Friends” (which was produced by the E.D.M. hitmaker Calvin Harris) taps into the pop-disco revival ignited by artists like Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware, taking its shout-along hook from a common reality show refrain.As on “Unholy,” Smith’s arrangements often feature prominent and inventive use of backing singers. While some pop musicians of more limited vocal range employ choirs to hit notes they cannot reach, the nimble-voiced Smith always sounds, more organically, like a member of the chorus who has simply stepped to the forefront for a solo. Smith hammers that point home on the grandiose hymn “Gloria,” but makes it more subtly and effectively on the excellent “No God,” a moody, midtempo R&B number that reads a stubborn ex-lover the riot act. “You’re no god, you’re no teacher, you’re no saint, you’re no leader,” Smith sings with silky venom, while a group of bass vocalists offer some sonorous no-no-no-nos in agreement.But the quality varies across the 12-track album, which Smith wrote with their longtime collaborator Jimmy Napes and a rotating cast of other contributors. The dancehall-influenced “Gimme” has the libidinousness of “Unholy” but little of its charm, centered around a gratingly repetitive hook from the Canadian musician Jessie Reyez, who also makes an appearance on the similarly uninspired “Perfect.” The album’s final track, “Who We Love,” is its gravest misstep, a schmaltzy duet with Ed Sheeran that plays it safe and blunts the force of Smith’s previously idiosyncrasy. “It’s not a feeling you can run from, ’cause we love who we love,” Smith and Sheeran sing, blandly sloganeering. If it’s meant to be a romantic duet between them, it lacks a spark. If, more likely, it’s meant to be a message of allyship from a straight artist, it’s giving Macklemore.“Gloria” has moments of boldness, but its occasional lapses into generics keep it from feeling like a major personal statement. “Nobody taught you how to cry, but somebody showed you how to lie,” Smith sings on the acoustic-guitar-driven “How to Cry,” a well-intentioned call for vulnerability that nonetheless revolves around a simplistic melody and rhymes so obvious, the listener will be able to predict them before each line ends. Smith’s voice, as ever, is effortlessly dazzling, but it can certainly handle more challenging material. Maybe they are an Elton John in need of a Bernie Taupin.Sam Smith“Gloria”(Capitol) More

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    Blackpink, Aespa, NewJeans: The Evolution of K-Pop Girl Groups

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicOver the past few years, Blackpink has emerged as a worldwide force — hit singles, huge tours, influence in the fashion world — becoming perhaps the first K-pop girl group to reap the full benefits of the genre’s globalization. Standing on the shoulders of earlier innovators like Girls’ Generation and 2NE1, it has become a pop standard-bearer all around the world.It also has been joined in recent years by a slew of other girl groups with growing profiles and unique personalities: Itzy, Aespa, Ive, and the most recent microgeneration, NewJeans and Le Sserafim.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the different paths girl groups have had to traverse compared to their male peers, the manner in which they blend music and storytelling and how the worldwide spread of K-pop has amplified opportunities for them.Guest:Tamar Herman, who writes about K-pop for Billboard, Forbes and othersConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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    ‘Kompromat’ Review: Escape From Siberia

    In this thriller, a French diplomat takes to the road after being falsely imprisoned by Russian authorities.The French thriller “Kompromat” dramatizes the true story of Yoann Barbereau, a Frenchman living abroad in Russia who escaped the country in 2017 after being imprisoned under false charges. In the fictionalized version of events, Mathieu (Gilles Lellouche) works at a French cultural institution in Irkutsk, one of the largest cities in Russian Siberia. In his joie de vivre, Mathieu hosts a ballet as a show of diplomatic good will. But the erotic nature of the ballet runs him afoul of local authorities, including agents in the Russian Federal Security Service, known for continuing the practices of the once dreaded K.G.B.Suddenly, Mathieu is arrested under fabricated accusations of child pornography and abuse. Mathieu is assigned an attorney who negotiates his release from prison into house arrest. Trapped at home, he awaits trial with dwindling hopes of intervention from the French government. Mathieu’s desperation grows, and this thriller takes a turn toward action when he acquires a phone from a friendly contact and takes to the road, staying in safe houses en route to the French embassy in Moscow. But there, Mathieu finds little support for his release, and so he looks again to escape, this time with the European border in mind.The director Jérôme Salle shows interest in the realpolitik of Mathieu’s situation, and his film scopes out the grim safe rooms and fluorescent meeting halls where Russian political schemes and French political failures take place. But Salle’s approach leaves the physical details of Mathieu’s escape foggy. It’s not always clear how long Mathieu spends in hiding, or how he acquires the tools needed to sustain his flight. The politics confound the film’s sense of action; the camera sticks to the diplomats even after the protagonist has escaped from a back door.KompromatNot rated. In French and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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    ‘Remember This’ Review: A Stark Portrait of Resilience

    This film, featuring a captivating performance from David Strathairn as the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski, is a straightforward adaptation of the play of the same name.Last fall, David Strathairn captivated Brooklyn theatergoers with his solo performance in “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” depicting the Polish resistance fighter’s harrowing journey through exile during World War II. Originally produced by Theater for a New Audience as part of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, “Remember This” took inspiration from the documentaries in which the real-life Karski appeared — 1985’s “Shoah” and 2010’s “The Karski Report” — along with Karski’s own writings and lectures from his decades as a Georgetown professor. The result was a stark, minimalist set in which Strathairn recreated the horrors that Karski, who died in 2000 at age 86, endured using nothing more than a table, two chairs and a suit jacket.The film version of “Remember This,” opening this Friday at the Quad Cinema, in Manhattan, adapts the stage play with little change in its presentation. Derek Goldman returns as director alongside Jeff Hutchens, and Strathairn is once again a one-man tour de force. Now with the benefit of editing, his transitions between the devastating and triumphant scenes of Karski’s life are punctuated with camera tilts upward into dramatic lighting cues, allowing for subtle cuts in what still resembles a one-take performance.Despite this, “Remember This” is, quite literally, a filmed play, and Goldman and Hutchens don’t make any attempts to define or elevate itself outside the confines of the stage. That can start to feel claustrophobic at 90 minutes long, but perhaps the directors saw that as a necessary trade-off, as Karski’s numerous and poignant monologues performed to the camera — on the nature of evil, on Holocaust denial, on how one chooses to retell the truth — would have felt out of stylistically place in a cinematic version. As it is, they’re the element most likely to be remembered.Remember ThisNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘The Mission’ Review: A Substantial Service Undertaking

    Mormon teenagers travel to Finland for missionary service in this documentary that struggles to offer new insights.American Mormon adolescents trek to Finland for missionary service in the pallid documentary “The Mission.” Directed by Tania Anderson, the film opens with its young subjects preparing for their travels, and then tracks their two-year journeys and the challenges that attend the substantial undertaking.One hopes that such access to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would yield new insights into the religion. But as the events unspool, the film struggles to crystallize more than a handful of compelling points.The documentary spends time with four missionaries in particular: Sister Bills, Sister Field, Elder Davis and Elder Pauole. (The Church frowns upon the use of first names.) The young women are sunny. The young men are stolid. Beyond their general dispositions and their aptitude for Finnish, which each of them are asked to study, the film fails to bring them to life as individuals.Upon arrival in Finland, the missionaries receive companions who serve as their roommates and proselytizing partners. The kids are instructed not to leave one another’s sight, a rule that we later learn is meant to prime the adolescents for marriage, which awaits them at home. This vital detail is obscured, however, by our surface-level time with the pairs. We see them pray side by side and knock on Finns’ doors, but before the camera, the companions default to reticence.Being a teenager is tough enough, and living for years in a foreign city must add stress to the usual malaise. Unfortunately, Anderson’s camera feels like an outsider to this unease, less a window into a demanding time than an obstacle to our understanding.The MissionNot rated. In English and Finnish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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    ‘Maybe I Do’ Review: Lukewarm Liaisons

    Looking at the seasoned cast — Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and William H. Macy — you might think you want to see this movie. Hold that thought.A romantic comedy starring Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon and William H. Macy would kill as a Nancy Meyers movie. Unfortunately, the rom-com “Maybe I Do” was written and directed by the television veteran Michael Jacobs.“Maybe I Do” not only lacks the luscious locations of a Meyers picture, it’s got nothing in the realm of her medium-sharp writing either. For the first section of the movie, three story threads are intercut in a ham-handed, arrhythmical way.The picture begins with its only funny bit, in which Sam (Macy), alone in a movie theater watching a downer art picture and losing his mind, tears up his Twizzlers and mixes them with his popcorn. He’s about to throw in some Peanut M&M’s when he’s interrupted by Grace (Keaton), another lonely senior at the movies. A spark occurs and the two, who are unhappily married to other people, begin to fan the flame.Then, in a luxe hotel room, Howard (Gere) and Monica (Sarandon) grit their teeth through a dysfunctional adulterous tryst. “You’re pressuring me with your availability,” Howard says.And … elsewhere there’s a wedding. Michelle (Emma Roberts), a bridesmaid, is eager to catch the bouquet, while her boyfriend, Allen (Luke Bracey), is so terrified of her doing so that he actually intercepts the flowers, N.F.L. style. Inevitably, this leads to a fight over commitment, and an ultimatum that requires the couple to introduce their parents to one another. Guess who the parents are?For the climactic parental summit, Jacobs, who previously worked on TV shows such as “Boy Meets World” and “Charles in Charge,” settles on a mode that wobbles between stage play and multicamera sitcom.The ostensible comedic bits in which the oldsters duck each other soon give way to musty monologues on marriage — material that even the seasoned cast is unable to freshen up.Maybe I DoRated PG-13 for language and themes. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Nostalgia’ Review: Leave Now and Never Come Back

    The Italian director Mario Martone creates an expressive, economic depiction of crime and longing in this drama about a man coming home to Naples.In the Italian drama “Nostalgia,” strangers watch the streets from their windows, closing the shutters when the comings and goings become too dangerous to witness. This is Naples, where shadows flit along the rooftops and curtains close after dark. The only figure who seems to move freely through the streets is Felice (Pierfrancesco Favino), a businessman who abandoned the city as a teenager, and who has returned for the first time in 40 years.In his time away from Naples, Felice made a life for himself in Cairo. He’s married; he runs a successful business. But when his mother’s failing health brings him back to Naples, there is no hometown greeting cold enough to distract Felice from the warmth of his memories. In flashbacks, Felice recalls his misspent youth, which was passed alongside his best friend, Oreste. They raced motorcycles and swam in the sea. They committed petty crimes. These escalated to an act of murder. Now, Oreste (played as an adult by Tommaso Ragno) has become the kingpin of a Camorra criminal clan in Naples, and despite all warnings, Felice is desperate to find him.The director Mario Martone cannily depicts Naples as a city that depends on furtive criminal codes, and he mixes elements of the thriller genre into his depiction of Felice’s return. Teenage sentinels maintain their fixed stations in the streets, but their eyes follow Felice. When Felice speaks, his questions are met with silence. Doors only seem to close and never open, and the residents of the city seem to reflexively hunch, as if straighter posture would mark them as targets. Martone’s depiction of crime is at once expressive and economic, a world of danger boiled down to pregnant pauses and minute gestures.NostalgiaNot rated. In Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters. More